"This well-wrought historical mystery pits the brilliant wordsmith John Donne against the Machiavellian politician Robert Cecil. The match is uneven; Cecil runs James I's kingdom while Donne struggles to make ends meet through the patronage of the alluring Countess of Bedford who sets herself up as a rival to his resourceful wife Anne.

Donne is summoned to meet with Cecil who suborns the struggling poet as a spy to infiltrate the underground network of English Catholics seeking Jesuit priests. But Donne wants no part of any spying. He sets out instead to outwit Cecil as he journeys...